Almost 99% of tents were taken home from music festival Kendal Calling – which urged people to ‘leave nothing but memories’ as part of a campaign.
The event, at Lowther Deer Park, near Penrith, saw 40,000 people gather for four days of music earlier this month.
Calling on everyone in attendance from the festival goers and staff, to traders and artists, the campaign was created to encourage collective efforts to make Kendal Calling one of the greenest festivals in the UK.
The call-to-action aims to promote greener festival-going, with everyone mucking in together and doing their bit for the environment. And this year’s results demonstrate the remarkable efforts of the Kendal Calling community, with the festival seeing further year-on-year improvements as the campaign continues to gain traction.
It said 98.9% of tents were taken home from the festival this year – a rise from 2023, when 98% were taken home.
Andy Smith, Kendal Calling co-founder said: “Each year, we strive to further reduce our environmental impact alongside our fantastic audience and partners.
“Our Leave Nothing But Memories campaign was proudly displayed across all corners of the site this year, and we are incredibly pleased to see that an enormous 81% of festival goers are now actively aware of this important initiative.
“We take huge care of our beautiful site at Lowther Deer Park, a place we are proud to call home. And we are equally proud to have one of the most wonderful, environmentally conscious communities of festival goers who don’t mind mucking in to help – without you, none of this would be possible. We’re not done yet though, and we embrace a challenge, so let’s make it 100% of tents taken home next year!”
The festival’s reusable ONE planet ONE cup scheme saw 22,500 cups returned to collection points across the site, versus 15,300 in 2023.
New for 2024, Kendal Calling introduced seven voluntary food collection points in a bid to further reduce food waste.
These drop offs were available across the campsites from Sunday and Monday. This year, 270 kilos of food was collected.
This has since been distributed to Windermere And District Food Bank and Kings Food Bank.
Another new addition was in place at Kendal’s dedicated area for little ones, Kids Calling. This year for the first time, the area ran entirely on renewable energy, something the festival is keen to build on across the site.
Tickets are now on sale for the 2025 festival.
